In your best form : a series of broadcast talks for diabetics and their families (recently broadcast in the Home Service programme and published with the permission of the author and other broadcasters.).

Date:
1949
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: In your best form : a series of broadcast talks for diabetics and their families (recently broadcast in the Home Service programme and published with the permission of the author and other broadcasters.). Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    We’ve tried to show you that living on a diet isn’t as bad as it sounds, that the business of dieting needn't keep a diabetic at home, and that having a diabetic in the family shouldn’t upset the family catering very much. All that depends of course on how much the diabetic or his mother or his wife knows about the diet, and how to vary it.. This means hard work, but it’s worth it. <:It means ‘that! the diabetic can be a free man as far as dieting goes, and he can have that freedom without unnecessary risk. 3. Insulin First some obvious practical points. If a diabetic patient is taking insulin, it is essential that he should get the right kind of insulin, and the right strength of insulin, that he should give himself the right dose, in the right way, and at the right times. It sounds formidable, doesn’t it ? But you soon get used to it and it becomes almost second nature. The right kind of insulin. There are three kinds in use. The first is soluble or clear insulin—clear because it looks like water in the tube. It acts quickly and last 4 or 5 hours, so patients have to take two or even three injections a day. The second is zinc protamine or cloudy insulin. This looks slightly milky in the bottle. It acts slowly but lasts for 24 hours or even more. Many patients, therefore, can now take one dose of zinc protamine insulin a day, or a single dose partly of zinc protamine and partly of soluble insulin. The third kind: is globin insulin, which also acts slowly and lasts for about 24 hours. Unfortunately it is a clear solution and looks like soluble insulin in the bottle. The next question is the strength. Soluble insulin is made in three strengths and zinc protamine and globin are each made in two strengths. There are, therefore, seven different kinds of insulin that you can buy, and you must get the right one. It has now _ been arranged that each kind shall be packed in a different coloured package. All you need do is to see that you always get a box with the same colours on it. So unless both you and the chemist are colour blind, there shouldn’t be any mistake. | | Measuring insulin gives some people a lot of trouble. I haven’t time to explain this, but if you are in any doubt about measuring your dose, you should take your insulin and your syringe along to the doctor or diabetic clinic, and get them to explain it to you on your own syringe. : I am not going to describe how to give injections. You must learn that from a doctor or nurse. If you haven't already done so do learn to give your own insulin so that you are independent ; unless of course your sight isn’t good enough or you have some real handicap. What happens if a patient takes too much insulin ? Well, he’s likely to have an insulin reaction. This may also happen if, having taken his right dose, he misses a meal or is late with a meal, or. if he undertakes some unusual exertion. In each case the reaction is due to the same thing—to the fact that the level of the sugar in the blood has fallen too low. hy The forms taken by reactions differ with the different kinds of insulin and in different people. In fact reactions are very individual affairs. Reactions to soluble insulin occur within a few hours of the dose, and the patient usually knows they are coming on. Reactions to the delayed action insulins —zine protamine, and globin—may occur any time during the. day. and © sometimes during the night. They may — come on rather suddenly and the forms they take are very variable. I am not going to describe these reactions because the patients we are going to talk to can do that much better than I can. Since reactions are due to too low a level of sugar in the blood they can be corrected by giving the patient sugar in any form—lumps of sugar, boiled sweets or glucose tablets—or by hurry- . ing up the next meal. The sugar acts quickest if it is dissolved in a little water. Two or three lumps will usually do the trick. Patients know all about this. They should always carry sugar with them and take it as soon as they need it,
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